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Russia Building World's Largest Li-Ion Battery Plant
MikeChino writes "Russia and China are gearing up to dominate the lithium-ion battery industry by launching the world's largest Li-ion plant (press release). Planned for Novobirsk, Russia, the facility will be a joint venture between Chinese firm Thunder Sky and RUSNANO (a Russian state-run corporation) and it will be able to produce up to 500,000 batteries (of all sizes) per year."
And where are they getting all the lithium from?
In Soviet Russia, battery charges YOU!!
will never feel bad about working there.
help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
Just how big is this battery going to be?
We battery YOU!
Jesus Christ, it's a Li-Ion! Get in the Ca-ar!
On the upside, electric cars should become much more affordable.
This might just kick the electric car into mainstream mass production, as the cost of reasonable battery technology falls below production costs with illegal subsidies.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
There is no Novobirsk in Russia. It is most likely Novosibirsk ().
500,000 batteries per year is considered that large? When Apple is selling close to 20,000,000 iPads/year? And iPhones, and all the PC manufacturers laptops/netbooks, and all the Android phones, and all the other phones? What do they all do, buy batteries from dozens of different manufacturers for each of their popular products? Really?
Thunder Sky is an awesome name. RusNano pales in comparison, then straight up faints. I'd love to see more of these odd pairings... "Thai company Robogasm has announced plans to build a microprocessor plant with British owned Drolltech". "African firm KittenRocket's joint venture with Spain's SpainSoft has analysts excited". "Destiny Blaster LLC of Florida is building a plant in Canada with local firm Polite Neighbor Software Inc".
from press release it is clear, that the plant is not for plug in hybrids market ( and the possible answer - is low quality,which in below the current plugin batteries ). For buses and for grid storage - molten salt batteries are preferred ( because materials are much more abundant and cheaper and for these applications the biggest problems of molten salt batteries ( high temperature ) could be of less significance than in cars ). There are examples of such uses http://asmoronurhadi.blogspot.com/2011/03/tindo-worlds-first-solar-electric-bus.html and http://engineering.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2011/03/11/so-what-battery-technology-powers-our-electric-bus/ etc, there are new developments http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/low-temperature-molten-salt-battery-ten.html http://www.greencarcongress.com/2011/11/sumitomo-2011111.html in this field, which could make molten salt batteries even more attractive. and if to consider, that lithium reserves are quite limited - mass production of low quality batteries seems a strange idea. I can't say for any good reasons for RUSNANO except they need to spend huge money on something ( they have a big budget and just few mostly idiotic projects )- it is moronic organization which is run by the man who put Russia into poverty in 90s due to badly designed reforms and any degree of idiotism could be expected, but what drives Chinese in this venture is an intresting question. It might turn out, that both sides are driven by bureaucratic logic and thus the project has no real value.
A lot fo american companies went into Russia in the 90s and most of them got burned. The corruption in Russia makes Chinese corruption look quaint. One company I worked for would send crates full of high tech computers and equipment to the factories in Russia, only to find a bunch of rocks in the crates when they opened them up in the factory.
For some reason, the summary says Novobirsk. It should of course be Novosibirsk.
Slagborr
The article alludes to the plant's status as "largest" is due to the fact that it is 40,000 sq. feet (quote: "The collaborative facility, named Liotech, will have an area exceeding 40,000 square feet – making it the largest lithium-ion battery factory in the world.")... But in the US a plant recently opened totaling 291,000 sq. feet (see http://ir.a123systems.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=506787 ). Which is it? Largest by cell count perhaps?
You mean Novosibirsk?
Is that a city in Beria, or do you mean Novosibirsk in Siberia? Please spell check before you submit.
I heard you like battery, so we put some batteries in your bat so you can battery while you batter.
Perhaps the poster should have read the article. The 500,000 figure comes from the number of buses they expect to be able to equip with batteries each year. It seems while we can't even read, the Chinese and the Russians are moving ahead to OWN the battery market for vehicles.
Maybe the Chinese figure that if they ship large quantities of lithium to Russia for use in their green bus technology efforts, they will build out their lithium industrial manufacturing base, and help them further dominate the alternative energy technology markets.
Given our addiction to products like iPads and cellphones, we will buy them at any price and since most of that production is already in China now, our economy simply serves as a conduit to feed theirs. They have to do something with all those dollars we are sending them right? It would seem that Chinese energy plans are light-years ahead of those in the US, where corporations are doing all they can to keep us dependent on post-peak oil. The location of the plant makes sense, as its not too far from Chinese lithium sources, so freight costs on their expanding rail networks will actually work to their advantage providing a double pay off to two industries, as well as strengthening their strategic ties with the neighbors.
500,000 batteries a year? Google just activated 37 million Android devices in a single day, 74 times as much. The world would need over 22,000 of these factories to keep up, if that rate persists, as it will soon enogh, for only Android devices. How is this a big deal?
It's good for China and Russia to have mutual trade in high-tech stuff that's cheap. If the world's consumers can be organized to force the two countries to clean up their filthy lithium refining industry (the reason it's cheaper in places like Russia and China), that would clean things up and give Russia and China more work in this productive industry. Which is a good alternative to the gangster alternatives.
And better than the war between Russia and China that has raged periodically for dozens, even hundreds or thousands of years.
--
make install -not war
I think he fails at life altogether.
From the press release: "The new factory has design capacity of more than 1 GWh"
actually, that's a beautiful way to get secrets from Americans
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
"...Thank you for calling USA-One Credit. My name Peggy..."
I misread it as planet instead of plant for some reason... hahaha battery planet...
Well, they've already mastered Titanium-Germanium batteries (Ti-ger), so all they need to do is combine that with their Li-Ion factories to make Tigons and Ligers, which are always awesome.
Ordinary sodium chloride. Doesn't have to be lithium.
http://www.science20.com/news_releases/salt_may_be_antidepressant_which_would_also_explain_why_its_addictive
Some people may use too much in order to counteract depression. Or perhaps, modern diet being high in salt causes depression when salt levels drop.
Deleted
Unfortunate, perhaps, that's it's happening in Russia, but this is precisely what is needed to get the move to electric vehicles into gear: a massive high-risk investment in mass production of lithium batteries. The raw materials for lithium batteries are not rare or expensive; the high cost is due to the sophistication of the manufacturing process. But with sufficient investment in high-volume output, those costs can be brought down, just as with other high-tech commodities like hard drives or memory sticks. American battery makers like A123 and EnerDel have been unwilling or unable to make those investments on a sufficient scale and remain low-volume, high-cost producers. Try to buy a large-format, vehicle-grade lithium cell, and you'll find several companies willing to sell them, all Chinese. The sad truth is that batteries may have to be imported in order to compete with gasoline in cost per vehicle-mile, but that's still better than importing all that oil.
You have to pre order to get yout ThunderSky batteries.
They are that good and inexpensive.
I can not wait to see the prices after this business deal is up and running.
Count me as a customer.
Currently they develop a 2 liter small car.
It doubt there is much real corruption in China, otherwise they would not be able to produce extremely large numbers of devices and machines at low price, acceptable quality and on time. I would say the level of corruption in America is much higher than China, if you look at what the financial industry did with the American state recently. Lehman Brothers clearly was a criminal conspiracy to loot the state, but not a single person got jailed. America is on a direct route into the crapper while China is improving in any aspect, including healthcare, education and environmental protection, although from a much lower level.
Now, who is more corrupt ??
And no, I am German and I am not doing business with China whatsoever. I just don't believe in American jingoism.
This project spells one thing - Environmental disaster.